DUBLIN (Reuters) – The Irish government will seek legal lt against the EU Commission’s decision to tax payments of the iPhone-Apple Group &; APC.ETR & gt; & Lt; AAPL.NAS & gt; set to Wehr. Thereupon the Irish Cabinet at a special session agreed on Friday. The European Commission ruled that Apple must pay extra € 13 billion in taxes.
“The government has decided unanimously, contrary to the European courts against the European Commission decision in the Staatsbeihilfen- appeal case to Apple “, leaving the Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan know in a press release. “Ireland is making no deals with taxpayers,” Noonan said. The full tax amount has been paid and there are no state aid was granted. The country is, however, obliged to collect up to 13 billion euros from Apple. The sum can be deposited in an escrow account until the dispute is decided.
About the action before the European Court now is to vote the Irish Parliament. Parliament will also decide in the coming week. According to observers, the government can hope for broad support for their course.
The European Commission was not impressed by the announcement of the action. “We have the legal point of course designed so that it will stand up in court. This is the reason why it sometimes takes a long time to bring about the end of this investigation,” said EU Competition Commissioner Margaret Vestager on Friday.
Apple is projected by the EU Commission have received through tax agreements with Ireland inadmissible state aid. Thus, the US group is said to have paid in 2014 a corporation of only 0.005 percent. The Commission ordered payments amounting to 13 billion euros. Although Dublin rejects the allegations that the system of corporation tax will be reviewed by an independent expert, the government said on Friday.
Also, Apple announced to file a complaint. Apple CEO Tim Cook accused the EU Commission to pursue a political agenda. The criticism from Brussels, Apple had paid in Ireland in 2014 a corporation of only 0.005 percent, Cook called “political filth”. “I do not know where they got this number,” said Cook. Apple had paid in the year $ 400 million tax in the country. “We believe that we were making it the largest taxpayer in Ireland this year.”
Vestager disagreed. Your authority relied on figures from Apple itself and partly on data from hearings in the US. It advertised more tax transparency. Companies should disclose, among other things, how many employees they have in a country, how much revenue and profit they made and how many taxes they paid. “This would have any kind of mystery to an end.” Proposals had made in the spring of the EU Commission. She threw the iPhone group before, “administrative offices”, where profits have been allocated, would exist only on paper. In Europe, the Commission’s action was widely welcomed from nearly all political camps.
criticism of the European Commission on the other hand came from the United States. US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew speculated that Europeans had it in for tax payments that would derive from the US Treasury. Vestager contradicted the: “In the case of Apple is about profits through sales in Europe,” she said. “I think this is clearly a European issue.” It announced that it would take Lew in September during a trip to Washington.
Apple for decades can already a significant part of the global business through subsidiaries in Ireland run, the structure has been around since 1980. Previous expert estimates the tax payments ranged from several hundred million and 19 billion dollars that calculated the bank JP Morgan as a maximum possible.
Apple is sitting on cash reserves of $ 230 billion currently good. About 90 percent of store outside the United States, largely in Ireland. Investors took the decision left to that the price of Apple shares gained in New York trading last easily
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